Max (Miksa) Weiss, born in Sered1, had a short but brilliant chess career. He was 2nd= at Hamburg 1885, 2nd= at Frankfurt (1887) and 1st= with Mikhail Chigorin at New York 1889. The latter tournament was intended to select a challenger to Wilhelm Steinitz for the world championship. Weiss drew the subsequent play-off match (+0, =4, -0), establishing himself as one of the world's best players, but then quit chess for a banking career. In 1895 he did play a match with Georg Marco and won (+5, =1, -1).

Gypsy: It seems that Miksa (Max) Weiss also tied for first with Schechter in Vienna 1895. It was right Weiss wictory overy Marco. Other notable contestants included Englisch, Marco, Zinkl, Mendelbaum, Judd (US consul to Vienna), Schwarz, Halprin, Albin.

MorphysMojo: Not only was Weiss high rated per chessmetrics, let it be known that he had plus scores against 19th century greats Zukertort, Chigorin and Janowski, with even scores against Tarrasch, Bird and Winawer. Yeah, I'd say he deserves recognition! With only 167 games in the DB he gets overlooked for the wrong reasons. His loss percentage of only 17% puts him in excellent company!

Pen portraits of the participants in New York, 1889 were published on page 8 of the New York Times, 16 June 1889, under the heading <The Chessboard Kings - Ways and looks of 20 great players>:

"<Max Weiss> is one of the most careful and conservative chessplayers. In appearance he is a small-built man of fair complexion, very light brown mustache, mild, thoughtful eyes, and a well-developed, polished brow. With his hat on his head, and it is often there, hiding his forehead, he looks like a mild, easy-going German who takes life easily and knows how to enjoy both lager beer and a good cigar ..."

Marmot PFL: <He who hopes to learn the fine art of the game of chess from books will soon discover that only the opening and closing moves of the game admit of exhaustive systematic description, and that the endless variety of the moves which develop from the opening defies description; the gap left in the instructions can only be filled in by the zealous study of games fought out by master-hands.>

Not Weiss, but his friend, Sigmund Freud (154 years old today). No games of his survive evidently, although I think he was a strong player for an amateur.

He used to play against Moreno Heim with knight odds and for the last time on February 20, 1927. After winning this game he remained at the club and kibitzed a bit. After leaving, he never returned and the next thing they heard about him was the news of his death, one day aftwards. He seems to have been very silent and humble.

NOTE: You need to pick a username and password to post a reply.
Getting your account takes less than a minute, totally anonymous,
and 100% free--plus, it
entitles you to features otherwise unavailable.
Pick your username now and join the chessgames community!
If you already have an account, you should
login now.

Please observe our posting guidelines:

No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language.

No spamming, advertising, or duplicating posts.

No personal attacks against other members.

Nothing in violation of United States law.

No posting personal information of members.

See something that violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform an administrator.

NOTE: Keep all discussion on the topic of this page.
This forum is for this specific player and nothing else. If you want to discuss chess in general, or
this site, you might try the Kibitzer's Café.

Messages
posted by Chessgames members do not necessarily represent the views of Chessgames.com, its employees, or sponsors.